Aston

The designers’ choice for 2D/3D motion graphics

Aston is a motion graphics creation, CG and playout system developed with the designers in mind, created from the ground up to be extremely user friendly so the operators can concentrate on creation rather than pure operation.

Broadcast design is a demanding task and the pressure is constant to quickly deliver or modify high-quality graphics that enhance a channel’s branding and program content. Designed for a robust on-air operation, designers can create, manipulate, animate and perform last-minute changes, even while on-air. Aston enables the design team to change any of the attributes on the template in real-time making the improvement process easier and faster.

Aston is resolution independent and works with any HDTV flavour, 4K or even higher resolutions for larger screens. In addition, Aston is MOS compatible and also supports a wide range of 3D formats such as .fbx, .dae, .obj and.3ds, to name a few.

Why Aston

Aston is a designer-oriented solution, developed to facilitate and enhance the design process.

Features an adaptative GUI where the basic tools are always present, but as the design grows the required contextual tools become automatically visible.

Aston integrates seamlessly into collaborative workflow environments. Designers can share objects, libraries, presets, properties, compositions or complete projects so they are available to anyone involved in the project.

For CG operation, Aston provides both the page-based workflow familiar to many designers, as well as the possibility of working with templates.

Created for designers

Aston has been created from the ground up to be extremely user friendly, so designers can concentrate on creation rather than on pure operation.

Intuitive drag-and-drop creation

AdaptativeContextual Interface. The basic tools are always present, but as the design grows the required contextual tools become automatically visible

Properties and attributes. Objects always display all their properties, so designers have all the information at hand, anytime

Supports a wide range of 3D formats such as .fbx, .dae, .obj or .3ds

Simple, intuitive drag-and-grop creation

Properties and attributes are always at hand

Works with any HDTV flavour, 4K or even higher

Advanced primitives, objects and materials

Brainstorm supports a wide variety of objects and primitives, from simple spheres to intricate curves or arrows, which also allow for multiple properties. Practically all the parameters (geometry, size, appearance, materials…) of the wide variety of objects and primitives supported by Aston are editable.

Intelligent CG made simple

When creating texts designers can select from a variety of choices, from static to animated texts like tickers, straps, etc. Multiple behaviour modes are available for text boxes, such as autogrow, autofill, pivot, crop and many more. Aston text work in the 3D space, and all their properties are always visible and available simultaneously for animation, allowing for distinct advanced creative effects.

Text and 3D objects can be linked to move, resize and grow together, allowing for advanced transition effects without scripting. Also, any text can be converted into fonts, allowing for easier template creation.

Auto-adjustable text boxes

Text boxes can be automatically adjusted as more text is typed. This allows the text to maintain its design attributes and parameters regardless its length, and opens the door for interesting creative effects.

Text auto-resizing

Text boxes can also maintain their size regardless the amount of text they contain, which will be automaticallyresized as it is typed. This allows to input unusually long texts while keeping the overall design.

Form-based text input

Any text can be converted into forms for easier template creation. This allows for creating purpose-built text input boxes to simplify text editing in complex templates with multiple text elements.

StormLogic

StormLogic is Brainstorm’s approach to intuitive template interaction. It is a tree structure of folders, that defines the logic between templates. This structure is created just by dragging and dropping templates in the desired place in the folder structure, where each folder defines the behaviour of the objects it contains.

Data-driven graphics

Unlimited input sources (XML, RSS, etc) per production and cross-references between data.

In Sports or Election Nights, allow for enormous amount of data to be presented in a comprehensible way

Data are automatically presented, animated and re-ordered as required

Collaborative workflow

Aston integrates seamlessly into collaborative workflow environments:

Support for multiple inputs from designers and other team members.

Sharing of objects, libraries, presets, properties, compositions or complete projects so they are available to any user on the network.

Turnkey system

Aston is delivered as a complete, turnkey system ready to use, fully and immediately integrable in any broadcaster’s workflow. Using standard broadcast plus complete IT connectivity, it is prepared to work at its best since day one.

Licenses

Aston Suite

Complete Aston solution. Includes the Designer and Player modules, as well as one OnDemand license for playout control.

Aston CG

Includes the Designer and Player modules. Good for standalone solutions that do not require of advanced playout control.

Aston Designer

Designer module. Does not have playout or render capabilities.

Aston Player

Playout and render module. Does not have creation capabilities

Hardware Recommendations

Aston Systems

NOTE These configurations are not valid for 4K. For any 4K solution please contact your sales representative.

SDI recomendations

Recommended Aston configurations

The following table of recommendations is orientative only and showcases standard certified configurations for Brainstorm products. While customers may attempt to use their own workstations for operating Brainstorm’s software, as we are flexible as far as hardware is concerned, it is advisable that our quality department certifies them first. Failure to follow this procedure may result in the software not working properly. Brainstorm does not take responsibility for system failures caused by the usage of uncertified workstations.